Pakse

Pakse is a young town in an old landscape. Its name means the mouth of the Se, the point where the Xe Don river joins the Mekong, and the Khmer temple of Wat Phou stood up the river valley to the south for centuries before any town existed here. The seat of power in the region was Champasak, capital of a Lao kingdom that broke away from Lan Xang in the early 18th century and later fell under Siamese control.

The French established an administrative outpost here in 1905, after taking the east bank of the Mekong in 1893. They laid out a small grid of streets between the two rivers, built a customs house and offices, and encouraged Vietnamese and Chinese traders to settle, so that for decades much of the commerce was in their hands: in 1943 some 62 per cent of Pakse's people were Vietnamese. Coffee planted on the Bolaven plateau above the town gave it an export crop, and river boats carried goods down to Cambodia.

The royal house of Champasak kept a presence through the colonial period, and Chao Boun Oum, the last Prince of Champasak and a prominent figure in Lao politics after the Second World War, began a vast palace above the Xe Don. He abandoned it, unfinished, in 1974; the Pathet Lao took power the next year and the prince went into exile. The building was completed under the new government, used for party congresses and visiting dignitaries, and converted into a hotel in 1995. Pakse grew steadily after the country reopened to trade and travel: the Lao-Nippon Bridge carried the road over the Mekong, the road west to Thailand was improved, and the town became the base from which most visitors reach the south.

Pakse is a Lao Buddhist town with a strong trading streak. Monks collect alms along the streets at dawn, temple fairs fill the compounds several times a year, and the rhythms of the Buddhist calendar shape the year more than any civil one. The southern Lao spoken here is close to the Isan speech of north-east Thailand across the border, and Thai television and music are part of daily life.

The town's population has long included Vietnamese and Chinese families whose ancestors came as traders and craftsmen under the French, and their shops, noodle kitchens and association halls are part of the centre. Upland peoples from the Bolaven plateau and the mountains beyond — Laven, Alak, Katu and others — come down to the markets to sell coffee, vegetables and woven cloth, and their textiles turn up on market stalls beside Lao silk.

The great event of the regional calendar is the festival held at Wat Phou each February, which draws pilgrims from across the south and from Thailand. Locally, the end of Buddhist Lent in October brings candle-lit floats on the Mekong and racing boats crewed by villages and offices, and Lao New Year in April brings several days of water throwing. Manners are quiet: greetings with palms together, shoes left at the door, and a strong dislike of raised voices or public displays of temper.

Pakse district had about 77,900 people at the 2015 census, making the town the most populous in Champasak province and the biggest in the south. The day starts early, with markets busy by six and noodle soup eaten standing up, and slows in the heat of the afternoon before the riverfront fills again at dusk. Motorbikes are the usual transport, and whole families ride them.

The economy runs on trade, transport and farming. Dao Heuang market gathers produce from the plateau and the river plain, wholesalers move Bolaven coffee and tea towards Vientiane, Thailand and Vietnam, and the border crossing to Ubon Ratchathani makes the town a staging point for freight. Provincial government, a hospital, the university and a growing tourism trade employ much of the rest. Many households also have land outside town and return to it at harvest.

Pakse's concerns are those of a small provincial capital: an unreliable power and water supply in places, roads that suffer badly in the wet season, young people leaving for work in Thailand, and a dependence on commodity prices for coffee and rubber. Dams on the Mekong and its tributaries have brought investment, jobs and arguments about fish stocks and resettlement, and building work along the riverfront has changed the look of the town over the past decade.

Pakse eats from the Mekong and the plateau. Grilled fish — ping pa, split, salted and cooked over charcoal — is the classic riverside meal, eaten with sticky rice pulled from a woven basket and dipped in chilli sauce. Laap pa, minced fish with herbs, lime, chilli and toasted rice powder, and mok pa, fish steamed in banana leaf with dill and lemongrass, appear on most local menus, and pa daek, the fermented fish paste of the Lao kitchen, underpins the flavour of many dishes. Tam mak hoong, the fiery green papaya salad, is pounded to order at every market.

Breakfast shows the town's Vietnamese inheritance: feu, a rice noodle soup served with a plate of raw herbs, bean sprouts, lime and chilli, and khao jii, the baguette split and filled with pâté, pork and pickled vegetables. Khao piak sen, a thicker soup of soft rice noodles, is the other morning staple. Spring rolls, sticky rice cakes and grilled skewers are sold from carts around the market.

Coffee is the local signature. The Bolaven plateau above the town has grown Arabica and Robusta since the French period, and Pakse is where it is traded and drunk — usually as a strong drip coffee poured over sweetened condensed milk and served with a glass of weak green tea. Beerlao accompanies dinner, and lao-lao, the village rice spirit, appears at celebrations.